I need some basics...

[joelon]

Hi everypeoples!

I am new to blacksmithing and often don't have time to work at the forge, but I want to start off right before I form bad habits. Can anyone here give me some tips on hammer basics and technique type stuff? That would be real helpfull!
Thanks!

[Strine]

Joelon
It's the first bit that got me in. Your skill will improve proportionately to the time you spend practising. So will mine for that matter . So my first suggestion would be to find the time to work at the forge. As for the other stuff, have a good look around here, there's lots of chatter about basic stuff that you'll find really useful.

[Ralph]

Joelon,
Strine is correct if you work at it you WILL get better. ALl of the time. If time is such a issue, I strongly suggest that you locate a smithing group near to you and go and participate in at least one hammer-in as your hammer techniques are extremely difficult to assess on -line. But watching others and having them watch you is the fastest method to learning the 'proper' way to hammer etc.

[Ed Thomas]

joelon: I like what you said and the way you think. As I understand it, you recognize that you want to make the most of what little time you do have.

1) Anything that requires practice requires frequent repetition and focus. You will benefit more from 30 minutes every day than 4 hours once a week. It might not feel like it, but it is true.

With practice, In less than 10 minutes, you can clean out a coal forge, light a fire and have a 5/8" bar at welding heat. In the remaining 20 minutes, you can make several parts to a bigger project, or several individual things such as hooks. At the end of one week you will have seven times that many parts or individual items, and you will have had the benefit of daily attention to your skill. The difference will be dramatic. Thirty minutes is a long time, and we squander it routinely. If you only hammer once a week, you will progress MUCh more slowly because an awful lot of that time will be trying to catch back up to what you lost over the week.

2) Ralph was right on. Find someone else GOOD who you can learn from. Go as far as necessary to do this. You will learn bad habits and mediocre skills from mediocre blacksmiths as surely as you will learn bad spelling and grammar from uneducated people. On the other hand, a short time with a good blacksmith will last you for two weeks or more of practicing to assimilate it all.

3) Nobody is requiring you to do this, so it is almost guaranteed to be fun. There are zillions of other people having fun forging. There is almost nothing more fun with your clothes on than a forge fest with other blacksmiths. Join a group. Form a group. Build fires. Have fun.

4) Do searches on this board for answers to your questions. Read what others asked and how it was answered by different people. Pay attention to the recommendations on what beginner books to buy. You should get at least one or two GOOD beginner books. They will have far better instructions on starting out than we will give here. Look on us as a resource of supplemental material for specific questions.

5) Welcome :!: :D

[elkdoc]

Definately no expert here, but I highly stress the importance of seeking out some other smiths near you and interacting with them. It'll make all the difference in the world. Books and internett bulletin boards are fine, even important, but secondary to forge time and guild meetings or hammer-ins. 8)

[Swamp Fox]

Carry a book on blacksmithing with you. When you are put on hold on the phone, waiting in an office etc, read the book. It is time that would have otherwise been waisted.

[bruce wilcock]

hi ,all the advice given is along the path you should follow, but also remember you can get alot of hammer control without a fire, i always start apprentices of in the first week ,on a short cast lead bar,short so the tongs have to be used ,right from the start, forge it out ,make tong halfs and so on, then re cast it and of again, remembr clean the anvil and hammers of after lead has been on them , the hammer control with no distractions from the fire improves by the day not weeks ,it was the usual way to start a lad and i carry on the same way,

[gerald]

A very good beginng and intermediate book is "A Blacksmithing Primer" by Randy McDaniel. It is very well written and illustrated. It is spiral bound so it lays flat in the shop so that you can refer to it easily. It is available from many online book sellers.

[elkdoc]

Don't forget modelling clay. I'll have to give Bruce's cast lead bar idea a shot.

I regularly hammer refrigerated clay (a la Strine, I think. Thanks buddy.). Especially when I've only got a spare half hour or so in the evenings. It really lets you know where your hammer blows are off.

[Ralph]

Personally I would not use lead. too many potential hazards. But modeling clay is a good alternative.

[ThomasPowers]

Could one buy a ingot of tin and use it like lead without the "don't lick your finger's hassle"?
(I'd worry about the lead scuffing on the hammer when then applied to 1500 degF metal...)

I'm past the point where reproductive toxins are a concern and the brain is already mush according to my children; but some of you out there....

Thomas

[Strine]

Lead is known for its dangers and I'd be worried that an ingot of tin would cost an arm and a leg. A lump of wood is as good as anything to practice using a hammer. Hardword is best as it will splinter up into bits of kindling to light the fire. In fact its how I make a handful everytime I fire up. Just lay it on the anvil and hit it till there's a danger of hitting the anvil face. You could even hold it with tongs to practise that as well.

[elkdoc]

Strine, I'm guilty of hammering wood into splinters for coal kindling too. Great way to warm up the arms.

[JimG]

Dangers of lead aside, I'm assuming it is used for training because it feels similar under the hammer to hat iron, plus since the trainee is shaping tong parts etc this allows the worker to see the affect of hammer blows on shaping a peice.

[Ralph]

A good stiff modeling clay also feels like hot iron. And it seems to defore in much the sam manner so you can guess the amount of matrial

[Ed Thomas]

Personally, I'd have been bored stiff beating on some practice material. I had lots of people tell me to beat on a board and clay and stuff. If you heat up some iron, it behaves amazingly like hot iron when you hit it.

I also do push the benefit of practicing anything, but just as important is to get it right from the very beginning by finding someone who really knows what they are doing and watch them. Have them watch you. If you can't find someone, get videos and mimic the good smiths in those.

[Strine]

Very True as well Ed.
All this reminds me of a hammering story I like to tell about a young freshly graduated surveyor I had the pleasure of entertaining for a while. As with a lot of fresh graduates they are all knowing. Well they don't teach hammer control at Uni do they? The Universities rely on the good will, knowledge and experience of those that are being told their knowledge and experience is old hat, to pass on the menial aspects of the work. Universities will one day realise that a surveyor's lot is basically banging pegs into the ground for one reason or another.

On this particular day we were setting out a house which meant banging in 2 x 1 stakes. We always used a block splitter for this as it was not too heavy and could also be used to chop as well. A block splitter is best described as a long handled, square faced hammer with a sharp 'straight pein'.

Having made all the calculations I issued my mate with his share of the sixty stakes and off we went, hammers in hand. He being left handed and me being right handed we were working back to back about twenty metres apart down the line. All seemed to be going fine. I could hear him working away so just got on with it. After about ten stakes I felt I was getting ahead a bit so thought I could get away with a bit of a spell. I turned around to see the other bloke still trying to get the first stake in and there's a pile of smashed up stakes laying around. Mmmm not so smart after all, I thought as I wandered over to gloa...er... assist.

"The Bloody hammer's no good" he said.

Wrong answer I thought which may have expained my annoyance. I checked it over for manufacturing defects or signs of wear; even tested its balance. It looked fine to me. So I had a go with it. Two hits and there's another stake done. There was nothing wrong with the 'tool', it must've been something else. :wink: I put another one in as more of a demo. But that was it, I wasn't putting anymore in! As they say ... you don't catch old birds on chaff.

He was adamant he was doing exactly what I was. I don't make a habit of standing in front of someone swinging an implement with a big lump of steel and a sharp edge on the end but what I saw from the side seemed fine... nice swing, reasonable action, good hand work, accurate for at least some of the time but still another smashed up stake. I took the risk and watched from the front. From this angle it all became clear.

In the downward swing he was actually turning the hammer head maybe 20 degrees. The hammer either glanced off the stake or hit it like a wedge. He wasn't surveying i.e. bangin' in pegs, he was cutting up kindling for the lunchtime Barby This explained why some of his reject stakes were as pointy on the top as they were on the bottom.

I allowed him to watch me put a few more of my ration of stakes in and then he went back to his lot. Well that seemed to work a bit better and there were far less breakages. That job cost at least a hundred stakes :!:

Make what you will out of this true tale, but don't sprout to me that you know what you're doing, especially if you a new graduate unless you know what you're doing. If you admit you don't know what you're doing I'll drop everything to help. I often worry whether I was ever so uppity, treating my elders' wider experience with contempt. I hope not but I suppose I was just as guilty in my youth.

And one last thing, I'd suggest turning the head of the hammer in the downward swing is sometimes a handy skill at the anvil.

[HWooldridge]

Strine,

I'll bet you were not uppity to your elders...that seems to be a personality trait that varies from each individual. I have had younger respectful apprentices who did what they were shown and old blow-hards that didn't know their bellows hole from one in the ground.

The worst one I can recall was an old guy in our forge club who would run his yap about any subject. We were doing a group project and each smith had a task. The two of us were supposed to make some long colonial gate hinges but all he wanted to do was stand by and coach. Finally, I handed him my hammer and said "Go to it because you can obviously finish faster than I can - my time is better spent elsewhere." I went to another part of the shop and watched from the corner of my eye. He beat around on a piece of steel for half an hour but finally put it all down and walked away. One of the other guys asked what was wrong and he launched into a spiel about his heart medication, the heat, the phase of the moon, the anvil's poor shape, etc. A few minutes later, he slipped out to his truck and departed. He came to subsequent meetings and still talked a little too much but never again volunteered to work. I espect my elders and never rubbed his nose in it but I really can't stand "experts" - at any age. The guys who know what they are doing talk with their hands and it becomes apparent pretty quickly.